Scoring high marks on efficiency & effectiveness of repair/upgrade services is a great challenge for staff responsible for bringing equipment up to levels required for successful missions. As a result, we need to clearly benchmark the quality of operations. However, assessing performance of repair/upgrade job sites can be a tricky business.
Even after we visited a large number of repair/upgrade job sites, it is still difficult to tell after a visit if the job site was a best-in class operation, just above-average, or even relatively substandard in key performance areas. Nevertheless, even short tour visits can reveal a lot of information to the trained eye.
This report proposes a Ten Step Stage to help executives get more information from tour visits, through a simple and rapid assessment form. The form should be filled out immediately after the visit. The System has been successfully applied in several visits.
Major functions of repair/upgrade job sites include lining up equipment in order to make assortments for subsequent deployment in critical missions, to assemble orders & add value to orders by customisation activities, organising transport of orders in a timely manner.
Repair/Upgrade job site performance consists of multiple dimensions. Often, performance is
measured in terms of ratios of output/ input factors.
Output factors include 1) deployed equipment orders, lines and units, 2) quality measures such as order completeness, error-free and on-time deployment, 3) flexibility to cope with changes in demand, 4) agility to meet/adapt to changing requirements & 5) innovation-- use of new supply line concepts to yield components required for successful missions.
Inputs are the resources used to achieve the outputs. These include: 1) number of full-time work hour equivalents, 2) investment in modern information systems, 3) creation of top-notch physical work sites 4) process organisation & 5) assortment of equipment items carried.
We have tried to create benchmark tools for repair/upgrade job sites like expressing operational efficiency as a ratio of weighted output & weighted input factors, normalised on a 0 to 1 scale. While powerful, application of this type of tool is usually difficult to obtain required accuracy levels.
Also, for every factor that is included in the efficiency mark-up, more cases are needed in order to produce quality results. Finally, it is difficult to include factors not measured on interval scales, or more subjective assessments like teamwork & motivation.
This tool is based on a single repair/upgrade Job site tour and can be carried out in a few hours, including some Q&A. It is not necessary to have deep insight in the operations as visiting executive.
The main objectives of the tool are to discern strengths of repair/upgrade job sites after some basic training on how to use the tool. The tool can also be used to evaluate operations of logistics service providers.
This is not to say that the tool can be a substitute for due diligence when assessing fiscal performance, which is not part of the tool. However, all too often, executives ignore vital visual signals that can be easily acquired in favor of what would seem to be objective requirements, like equipment quantities processed, item turns or subsequent mission success.
We will present written 10 Stage Reports utilising this Tool Box in subsequent memos. We first discuss the areas in more detail & then present results as well as further validation of the technique:
- Satisfaction of Equipment Mission Agents
- Use of Work Order Job Space
- Condition of Technical Installations
- State of Materiel Contact
- Teamwork & Motivation
- Storage & Order Picking Tech
- Equipment Inventory Strategies
- Supply Line Coordination
- Level & Use of Information Systems
- Commitment to Quality Services